


i reserve the right to disappear

by Serendipity_Stupidity



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Character Study, Dramatics, Kissing, Longing, M/M, Misunderstandings, Naked Cuddling, Not Actually Unrequited Love, heartfelt confessions, long periods of time where they are separate from each other due to misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:21:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22533151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serendipity_Stupidity/pseuds/Serendipity_Stupidity
Summary: The thing with time and space is that they distort each other. The further Crowley gets, the more time passes for Aziraphale.When a year stretches, yawns, turns itself over, when it turns into 5 years, when it turns into 10, Aziraphale grows weary. He reminds himself that he’d managed for longer stretches of time without him before, but he cannot for the life of him remember how.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 97





	i reserve the right to disappear

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not look too closely at the logistics of travel times/distances/ routes etc- everything has been tweaked for maximum dramatic effect.
> 
> I'm not very well travelled or versed in the cultures/dialects/people of the countries I've written about, everything has been thrown together with obsessive scanning of Wikipedia pages. No offence what so ever is intended, and if you’d like me to rewrite/ get rid of sections - or delete the whole piece all together, I'd be more than open to do so.
> 
> The title and piece was inspired by Yana Perrault's cover of Are You In Love by James Blake, which is linked below. Please enjoy.

[Are You In Love?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtSGSrJ6Zo)

* * *

_Go off together? Listen to yourself - we’re not friends!_

Crowley’s eyes snap open in the dark. The unforgiving ceiling gives him nothing but a blank slate, a cold slab of black. He grimaces as the ache in his ribs ebbs, and he turns onto his side and resolutely screws his eyes shut. Soon the dark swallows him back up, and a voice starts up again from the corner of the room, tinny like a radio submerged in a lake, hissing like a snake.

_…thereisssnoourssside…cr..wley…… not…nymore….._

* * *

The morning finds him lethargic and unrested, bitterly glaring at the sun. He snaps his fingers to shut the blinds and buries himself under the duvet until noon.

The second time he wakes, he feels no less grim than the morning. If sleep would help, he’d sleep for a thousand years. Miserably, he’d learned the hard way that millennial comatose rarely did anyone any favours.

He makes himself coffee, black, by hand just for something to occupy his time. He menaces his plants until they are tired of shaking and he is tired of yelling. He sits upside down on his chic black leather couch and magics himself a 70” flat screen and watches anything that tickles his fancy from the past 80 or so years of everything ever televised.

He’s bored sick 20 minutes in.

It’s been three weeks. Three whole weeks since the world was supposed to end, and Aziraphale had yet to call.

At this point, Crowley was willing to take a telegram attached to the leg of a carrier pigeon. _Anything_ , one little message, just one word - just so he would know he could talk to him.

He didn’t want to _assume_. His cocksure façade could only carry him so far, and his previously unquestioned place in Aziraphale’s life had taken quite the beating at the bandstand. At the time, the vivid teeth of dejection had been blindsided by ever-mounting panic of _pleaseangelpleasecomewithme - thereisn’ttime -_ awash with the bitter anger of what was being said.

But now? He’d had whole hours, uninterrupted days and nights and _weeks_ to think on what had passed between them, and it haunted him, dogged and vicious and full-bodied as an apparition.

He’d asked Aziraphale to come away with him and the angel had given him disdain. Whole, bitter, cruel words - _ridiculous_ , he’d called him, as if the idea of being around him a moment longer was _preposterous_ , was unthinkable, was less palatable than praying to some unanswering power in the sky.

God had never answered anyone. Not once.

Crowley had spent whole nights awake by the phone just to be given the chance to answer Aziraphale’s call.

He was running out of excuses to be around him. The Arrangement had been made redundant the same moment they had. Was there any reason for the angel to reach out to Crowley now he no longer had use of him?

He could visit the bookshop, but what would he say? The Ritz, for old times sake? A walk in the park, make stilted small talk and feed the ducks?

Before, they’d always had the pretence of tempting and thwarting, good natured rivalry, as flimsy an excuse as it was.

Now? What was he to say if Aziraphale asked him why? _‘Because I want to be around you’_? Because my idea of a good time is staying in with you, tucked up on your couch? Because I see things that remind me of you everywhere I go - because the voice in my head that tells me to be good is yours - because since the moment I saw you all white and gold on the garden wall I _knew_ -

Less than a month. Less than a month, that’s all it took. He’d gone utterly mad. They’d gone hundreds of years without the barest glimmer of each other before, what had turned him so soft?

Had the thought of the end of the world harrowed him so? Was Earth really what he’d feared losing? Or something entirely else?

Inside his own head, he knew the answer to that. He daren’t think too closely on it, other than the mildly concerning notion that perhaps he would have preferred it. The end of the world to this.

At least it would come with a soothing finality. Now, he knew he’d have to live the rest of his immortal existence with this feeling in his chest. This echoing sense of self-doubt, a hollowed gap where the self-worth Aziraphale gave him used to be.

Maybe Aziraphale had just been humouring him, all this time. Too polite to say otherwise unless pushed too far. Perhaps he’d meant all the things he’d said at the bandstand - that they were cut from too different a cloth, that they’d never really been friends.

Crowley wouldn’t - _couldn’t_ \- believe that. If that were true, he’d have nothing left.

Just a human vessel and a deep-seated ache.

He sat up straight with a sudden flash of stubborn refusal. He’d questioned everything he’d ever come across, but he wouldn’t question this.

They meant more to each other than they ever said aloud. This was fact. It had to be.

There would be no reason to anything if it wasn’t.

If Crowley could just believe in it hard enough, it would have to come true.

It had to.

* * *

Aziraphale sits anxiously at his desk, ringing his hands over the documents splayed about. What if he was making a mistake?

All of his things were here. Was there a limit to how many books a person could take with them?

What if he didn’t get along with the people in the new manicurists? What if they didn’t have manicurists that far out in the country? What if the restaurants were ghastly?

And what would Crowley say?

He’d still yet to work up the courage to tell him. They’d lived in different places before, but they’d settled here the longest. He loved the park, and the duck pond, and the Ritz. He loved the people and the gossip at the barbershop, he loved the busyness of it all swirling around him whilst he was settled in with a book.

But he longed for peace. To keep his books in a home, where no one would come and try to buy them. To look out at an open garden. Surely Crowley would understand that.

Wouldn’t he?

Something uneasy twisted in his chest when he heard a familiar engine purring up to the curb. It seemed one did not even need to speak of the Devil around here, only think of him.

He looked about the various estates scattered all over his desk and slipped them all into the drawer with a wave of his hand. But a quick glance around reminded him that there were more documents littered about the bookshop, spread on his coffee table, strewn about the couch. He tended to get a little messy when researching. Not to mention the fact that he’d already started packing some of his books into boxes.

There was no way he’d tidy it all in time, and he didn’t want to risk losing any important documents by miracle-ing them away. And what if the realtor called whilst Crowley was here - should he risk missing the call or Crowley overhearing things and misunderstanding something?

Now, that really wouldn’t do.

Aziraphale straightened out his petticoat and hurried to the front door, pulling it open and running straight into Crowley’s chest. The door latch clicked softly behind him as Crowley took a step back, down a stone stair or two, looking faintly startled.

“Aziraphale,” He said, sounding a little caught off guard.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale greeted, in kind, keeping his voice steady. Standing on the steps as they were, the two were eye-level. Sunlight came in slant ways and lit up Crowley’s yellow eyes, visible even through his sunglasses, the black pinstripe of pupil softening and rounding out the longer they looked at each other.

Crowley ducked his head, clearing his throat, and Aziraphale realises that perhaps he’d been staring a little too long. When Crowley lifted his head, he was composed, his sunglasses an impenetrable opaque black.

“Are you going to invite me in?” Crowley asks, back straight. Aziraphale thinks of all manner of things, creatures of the night, vampiric beings asking to be let inside, and suppresses a little shiver of delight.

“I’m afraid the shop’s closed for today,” Aziraphale tells him, willing his voice to stay calm. He thinks he sees Crowley’s gaze flicker to the traitorous ‘Open’ sign in the window, but hopes it’s just his imagination. “Dreadfully untidy. I’ve been researching again.”

“Right,” Crowley says, slowly, voice flat. “Do you want to grab a coffee, then?”

“I - can’t,” Aziraphale answers, a little stilted. “Can’t leave the shop, dear boy. I have an important call coming today.”

“Well, I guess I have no choice but to endure a little untidiness,” Crowley shrugs, making to come up the steps. Aziraphale panics, and positions himself firmly in front of the door handles, hands out in front of him as if to ward Crowley off.

“No, you really mustn’t - ”

“It’s a little mess, angel, honestly,” Crowley huffs, trying to reach around Aziraphale to get the door open. “It’s not like it’s radioactive. Do you know how untidy it is in Hell?”

“Stop it - ” Aziraphale fussily pushes Crowley’s hands away, and when Crowley brings his hand up to open the doors with a snap of his fingers, Aziraphale gives him a little shove - not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him stumble a little down the steps.

Crowley looks up at him, clearly baffled by Aziraphale’s behaviour, his glasses askew.

“Aziraphale - ”

“I don’t want you to come in!” Azira interrupts, hoping the indignation in his voice sounds final enough.

Crowley’s eyebrows pinch together, and something in Aziraphale wants to smooth the pads of his thumbs over the taut ridge of his brow, soothe whatever had unsettled him so.

“I need to speak to you.” Crowley tells him, sounding sincere and a little foolhardy with his heart all out on his sleeve like that. “The Ritz? Tonight? At 7?”

Aziraphale thinks of their usual routine, how dinner at the Ritz turns into dinner with champagne, and how champagne turns into a slightly inebriated invitation back to his place and then they’d be right back here - with the same problem he was facing now.

“I’m terribly sorry, my dear,” He eases, hoping his voice conveyed how truly sorry he was. Dinner and champagne and _Crowley_ sounded - well, it sounded divine. Nothing in Heaven ever comforted him quite like it. “Tonight won’t be possible.”

Something flashes over Crowley’s expression, something sharp and gone too fast and covered up too much by the dark lenses and something intrinsic in Aziraphale _aches_ at the mere sight of it.

“Tomorrow?” Crowley tries, voice small. “We could get lunch? Or - anything, really,coffee or a picnic or you could come to mine -“

“Crowley,” Aziraphale interrupts, feeling a little overwhelmed, what with the contractors and the paperwork and all the books he still had to pack and oh he supposed he could miracle it all done but then Heaven would know exactly what he was up to, and that was the last thing he needed right now. “I’m actually frightfully busy at the moment. And will be for the foreseeable future, actually.”

The last comment he adds as an afterthought, off-hand, but something in Crowley’s posture immediately tells Aziraphale that it had offended him, somehow.

He opens his mouth to try and right whatever he had wronged, but Crowley had already schooled his expression, was already stepping away. From this angle, he could see the vivid flash of Crowley’s eyes over the ridge of his lenses, and they were steadfastly reproachful.

“Right,” He says, tightly, and nods with a little downward quirk of his mouth as he was wont to do when he’d felt particularly affronted. “I won’t ask again, then.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale sighs, sounding put upon but fond, still, in spite of everything. He offers a small smile but Crowley isn’t look at him, is making rather a grand show of looking anywhere but in his general direction. “My dear. I’ll let you know when I’m next free. I’ll call you.”

This, for some reason, makes Crowley’s shoulders tense. Aziraphale watches his forced laid-back nonchalance boil into something rigid, something bitter.

“Oh, you’ll call me, will you?” For words with no sibilance, his voice conveys a warning hiss all the same, cold and sharp and plosive. “ _Don’t bother._ ”

The small smile is gone from Aziraphale’s face like a cloud smothering up the sun. He blinks, recoiling a little at the unprecedented venom. By the time his mind finally catches up with him, Crowley is already stalking off half-way to his car.

“Crowley - ” Aziraphale makes half an attempt to follow him down the steps, but no sooner than he had the phone let out a shrill ring.

Aziraphale dithers on the last step, uncertain of what to do next. If he left the phone call, there was a chance they wouldn’t bother to call again. Contractors could be terribly elusive creatures. But if he didn’t go after Crowley? Well, they’d had falling’s out over far worse, but Aziraphale didn’t even have the slightest clue what he’d done wrong this time. What if he never spoke to him again?

Oh, he’d win him over, surely? He’d have to miracle him some really special wine, and perhaps some new ghastly accessory in snakeskin, but he’s sure he could smooth things over.

“Oh, blast it all,” He fretted, hurrying back into the shop, hoping to catch it before the last ring.

Crowley would have to forgive him, just this once.

He’d make it up to him. He’s sure he could.

* * *

Crowley watches Aziraphale’s figure disappear back into the shop through his wing mirror. He chews his bottom lip, chest an anxious beehive, expression all creased up.

He didn’t come after him.

His head hits the headrest when he falls back against it, and stares out of the windshield, barely registering the busy London streets swarming around him.

Must have been a damn important phone call.

His hand comes up to the key in the ignition, and _almost_ turns it. Wills himself to, grits his teeth with the determination to do it.

Then he snarls, giving in, and his hands go to the dials of the radio. Within moments, it was tuned to the frequency of Aziraphale’s phone, and Crowley doesn’t even have to decency to feel ashamed. He was a demon. Giving into temptation was kind of his thing.

Once the static interference fizzled out, Crowley began to listen.

“…yes, I am,” Aziraphale was saying, his voice the pleasant clear bell he reserved for phone calls.

“And you’re still interested in the property?” A male voice questioned, with a stringent kind of professionalism. Crowley’s brow creased. _Property?_

“Very much so, yes,” Aziraphale answered, and Crowley could hear his smile. It made his hands tighten on the wheel.

“And you’ll be available for the showing in August?” The man further inquired, with a pause that suggested he was filling out a form.

“Yes, the 15th,” Aziraphale agrees readily, and there was the faint rustling of papers on his end of the line. _Contracts_ , Crowley thinks, bitterly. _Leases. Pretty pictures of pretty properties. Sign your name on the dotted line._

“Well,” The man was saying, scattering Crowley’s vicious line of thought. “Everything seems to be in order. I’ll have someone fax you the details for the 15th.”

“Ah, thank you kindly,” Aziraphale replied, in that chipper way of his, and Crowley felt vaguely sick. Aziraphale was speaking, asking some question or other, but Crowley had stopped listening. His voice fizzed into white noise, and he jabbed his finger into the off button.

He sits in the static absence of noise until the bustling sounds of London comes flooding back in. Then he grits his teeth, turns the key in the ignition and drives out of Soho with a screech of tyres and burning tarmac.

* * *

A week passes in a palimpsest of papers and phone calls and fax messages and cardboard moving boxes, and finally Aziraphale finds the guts to call Crowley.

He sits at his desk, worrying his lip as the phone rings out. It was the third ring, in as many calls. Still no answer. Perhaps he should have foreseen the silent treatment, what with how they’d left things.

It wasn’t like he was trying to distance himself, he really had been awfully busy. But perhaps he’d also let his nerves get the best of him, just a little. Perhaps the very thought of calling Crowley had his stomach in knots.

He’d never been able to keep a secret from him for long. What if he called and wasn’t able to stop the truth from spilling out? What if Crowley took it badly?What if he never spoke to him again?

He was being terribly presumptuous, with all this. Planning it all in secret, booking a showing, even packing his books. He could never do things in halves. He knew if he didn’t do everything quickly he’d lose his nerve, so it had to be like this. Crowley knew him well enough to understand that, didn’t he?

Surely he wouldn’t be angry, when Aziraphale tells him?

The silent treatment was starting to make him think otherwise. One little argument, and now he wasn’t even answering his calls. He always answered his calls. Always - even if they were angry with each other, he would always pick up the phone.

God, Aziraphale was tired. He wasn’t even a being that needed sleep, but this was draining him. The constant worrying, the distance between them.

He couldn’t help but think - no, he wouldn’t, would he? He wouldn’t do that to him again, surely he wouldn’t. He knew what it did to him, last time.

But maybe he was upset enough to.

Aziraphale set down his cup much more forcefully than strictly necessary, before standing up and straightening out his waistcoat.

It wouldn’t do to just sit here and worry. He would go to him, and apologise.

That would square things away for certain, and give Aziraphale something more to do than sit here and dither.

With a wave of his hand, he cleans his current teacup and tidies it away into his china cupboard, along with the saucer. He takes his overcoat from where it’s folded over the arm of his armchair and shrugs it on, smoothing out the collar.

Satisfied, and emboldened by his newfound direction, he turns the sign to closed in the shop window and hails a cab, locking the door with a snap of his fingers.

* * *

Aziraphale’s bravery waned with every white slip of road marking that was eaten up by the grill of the car. He stares, a touch forlornly, out of the cab window, feeling an uneasiness settle in his stomach. His hands fidget in his lap.

What if Crowley sensed his presence and refused to open the door? Worse yet, what if he opened the door only to turn Aziraphale away?

With a cold sneer, a slant set to his serpentine eyes, just dismiss him outright?

Perhaps he would need flowers. Even a box of chocolates - maybe the element of surprise would be enough to startle Crowley into letting him inside.

Oh, but they’d have to be store bought. Heaven-conjured chocolates never did taste as good as devilish ones; all that ethereal refusal of indulgence rendered them tasting like the chocolates perched on a hotel pillow - cheap, and overall, impersonal.

Aziraphale always coveted the chocolates Crowley made for him - deep, rich truffles, dark slices wound through with honeycomb, mint, sea salt, caramel. He wet his lower lip with a pink tongue at the thought.

The flowers Aziraphale could do; little bouquets of Eden, made of blooms only the two of them even remembered. They were both fluent in floriography, even if Crowley only knew through proximity to Aziraphale pointing them out on their walks, common name, Latin name, meaning.

He could say sorry in any number of ways without even opening his mouth.

Of course, Crowley always gave him flowers in celebration or apology. The former would come in great plumes of roses, wrapped in wax paper, pressed into his arms as Crowley came through the door. The latter was always much more subtle, a single bluebell that Aziraphale would find tucked into his breast pocket long after Crowley had left.

Sometimes, Aziraphale would find flowers around his shop for no reason at all. A potted orchid in his kitchen, a handful of lilies over his windowsill, a sprig of lavender on his desk. The violets always turned Aziraphale a distinct shade of pink, left in the hollow ivory of a teacup. He’d always wondered whether or not Crowley knew the implications of such a gesture. Surely not, but Aziraphale blushed all the same.

He kept one of each flower Crowley had ever given him, pressed between the pages of a holy book by his bed. It was the only place he was sure Crowley would never look.

With that aching thought, he asked the driver to drop him by the shops close to Crowley’s flat, and paid and thanked him with an absentness that he himself would have condemned as terribly impolite if only his mind were not elsewhere.

He was on autopilot all the way to the shops and back, arms laden with flowers and a box of strawberry fondant white chocolates that Crowley secretly loves and Aziraphale openly detests.

Surely he’d see how sorry he was if he gave him chocolates that he himself wouldn’t eat. Despite endeavouring for a cheery outlook, there was still an undercurrent of dread running through him, humming just beneath everything.

The feeling made him hurry along, anxious to see Crowley, wanting this all over and done with so they can get back to being themselves.

Crowley’s apartment building still looms ominously when he reaches it, tall and oppressive and blotting out the sun. The feeling tightens in his chest.

He forgoes the idea of buzzing the receiver, preferring to miracle the doors open. The ride in the lift feels impossibly long. Technically, Crowley’s apartment existed on a different dimensional plane than the building it was attached to. That way, he could avoid any unexpected human visitors, rearrange the floor plan, evade the particularly pernicious landlord and so forth. Still, Aziraphale did so wish elevator rides to adjacent dimensional space weren’t nearly so long.

When the ding of the doors opening finally comes he’s almost reluctant to get off. Along the sleek black corridor is Crowley’s door, daring him to approach it.

With the very last scraps of his courage, Aziraphale draws a breath and steps off the elevator.

He takes a step, and then another, and then very nearly stills at the sight of something amiss. The door was ajar.

Aziraphale approaches with another shade of caution entirely, his gifts forgotten in his slack grip.

With a tentative palm against the black wood, he pushes the door the rest of the way open.

The apartment is deathly quiet, cold and carved out by the draft of the corridor. Immediately, Aziraphale knows he is alone but for the sparse decor, Mona’s eyes staring listlessly out of the bay windows.

He ventures further inside, tentative, as if weighted by dread. Absently, he places the gifts onto the desk, forgotten. He walks the entire breadth of the place, and the realisations settle in like pebbles dropped into a well.

Crowley isn’t here. Hasn’t been for a some time. The place is unlived-in, the plants are dead. Perhaps worst of all, his phone - the blasted device he keeps on his person always, _always_ \- lays face up on the coffee table, wiped clean.

What did that mean? Was it a threat? A message from Crowley, to never call him again? Had someone taken him, and removed all trace of his presence in this place, and not even bothered to close the door upon leaving?

Why had the door been open?

Aziraphale feels the questions blur, become amorphous, monstrous, tangling themselves into a throbbing migraine. He squeezes his eyes shut against the force of it, steadying himself against the wall. Pressing his lips into a thin line, he wills it away, blinking as it dissipates into a distant fog.

He needs a clear head for this. Worrying himself into a frenzy would help exactly no one.

So what if he’d left his phone? Did Crowley, or anyone else for that matter, honestly think that would stop Aziraphale from finding him? He was an ethereal being, for Heaven’s sake - there was more than one way of contacting someone.

With a steadying breath, he lowered himself onto Crowley’s ungodly couch.

He takes in breath like the swell of a tide, letting his eyes close, letting himself settle. He centres himself, finds a slim patch of peace inside all of his panic and clings to it.

With the last vestiges of his energy, he reaches out, casting the question into the open expanse between them, across miles, mountains, forests, seas.

He hopes beyond hope that somehow, it finds him.

* * *

Crowley feels something flood into him like a surge in an electrical storm. It’s enough to bring him to his knees, falling out in some open field of rural Tuscany, a bottle of something strong and tart sloshing in his grip.

His first instinct is to look skyward, inherently suspicious of the Heavens whenever he felt a pain as grounding such as this. He wondered dismally if maybe God had finally decided to take him out for good. At this point, it would be a mercy.

“What now?” He bellows, in a drunken slur, emboldened by the anchorless feeling in his gut. What else could he possibly lose? “What else can you take from me?”

He doesn’t expect an answer. One comes regardless.

_Are you safe?_

That, honestly, blindsides him a little. For one, that wasn’t the voice of God. For another, what did that even mean?

Safe? Safe was tucked between the books on Aziraphale’s shelves, safe was warmth in his reading armchair, safe was the fleeting comfort whenever his fingers brushed Crowley’s skin - whenever he smiled and Crowley felt like he’d been purged, like he could walk into any house of God and remain unharmed. Safe was that soft look he’d give him sometimes, so fond, so impossibly forgiving. No one had ever forgiven him anything, but that look made him feel like he deserved to be. Safe was back in Soho, packing his things, never to return. Safe might already be gone.

Safe? No, he wasn’t safe. He’d never be safe again.

“No,” He mumbles out, miserable, when he realises. The tears spill just like the words. “Safe didn’t want me.”

_Where…are you?_

Blearily, Crowley looks around. He is swallowed in a sea of green - green, green ground, green, green trees. The stars above smear as if Vincent were painting them again, the air thick with heat, he is dizzy with it. The voice seemed further away somehow, weaker now, as if that too were leaving him.

“I’m lost,” He admits, though the thought doesn’t bother him; he’s been lost before, he’ll be lost again. All he has to do is keep walking until he collapses or finds more wine.

_I’ll fi—-_

The voice breaks in the middle, drawn too thin, crackling like static. That finally creates panic, sickeningly tight in Crowley’s chest. He was used to being alone, but he’d thought perhaps, for one moment, he didn’t have to be, but now it was gone again and it started to eat away at him, gnawing like an animal panic, starting to spiral -

_I’ll find you._

Crowley feels that wash over him, like a hand had reached out across some endless space and held his own. He closes his eyes, and the tears dry sticky on his cheeks. He feels that sentiment and the rigid heat wrap around him, and he lets himself lie down amongst the swathes of green, the world spinning, spinning, spinning until finally - blessedly - it stops.

* * *

Crowley wakes in painful increments, distantly registering that someone was yelling at him in what sounded like Italian. Blearily sitting up, he groans at the itchy unpleasantness of straw digging into his skin. Bitterly, he makes note of his surroundings.

He is in a barn, somehow, and his head aches. The farmer swearing bloody murder at him was not helping matters. He raises his hands in mock surrender, apologises in some approximation of the Tuscan dialect he scrounges up from somewhere, and soon he’s sauntering off - leaving the farmer shaking his head in affronted disbelief.

Crowley barely has it in him to sober up, but he manages it all the same. His tongue still feels heavy, wine-stained and thick in his mouth, but he feels he deserves some degree of punishment. He’s fairly sure he drank enough last night to start hallucinating out in a field - something he hadn’t done in decades. He wasn’t proud of himself.

The morning sun wasn’t all too forgiving either, what with it being mid-July in the rolling fields of Italy. He trudges along the dirt road in a heat-blurred dizziness until he comes across the nearest village equipped with an inn.

The shade is like a balm, and it’s blissfully near empty inside. A stout man is wiping down the wooden bar countertop, and he nods amicably in Crowley’s direction upon noticing him.

“What can I get for you, signore?” He asks as Crowley sits. “A room, a drink, a bite to eat?”

Crowley smiles as placatingly as he can manage, feeling grim. “Just water, per favore.”

“Ahh,” The barkeep chuckles, making a knowing sound. “Rough night, eh?”

“Well,” Crowley humours him, always rather charmed by older Mediterranean gentlemen. “I did wake up in a barn this morning.”

The man laughs some more, tipping his head back. He goes about fixing Crowley a glass of water,thankfully with ice, a look of mirth settled into the laughter lines of his face. At least a hangover gave some explanation for keeping his sunglasses on inside.

“Your angel won’t be too pleased with you,” The man remarks, placing the glass in front of him. Crowley’s mind goes presently blank, his chest twisting.

“What?” His voice comes out rough, startled out of him. The barkeep gives him a concerned glance.

“Your angel, signore,” He clarifies, wary so as not to cause further offence. “On your shoulder.”

Crowley closes his mouth, lets the realisation sink in. Silly humans and their ridiculous expressions. His mouth thins into a firm line. “Right.” He nods, once. “Grazie.”

The barkeeper smiles, a little forced, and resumes cleaning, presumably to give Crowley some peace. He’s grateful for it, as his mind turns to things he was pointedly not thinking about before.

_Things_ , as in Aziraphale. Things, as in his home in London, which he will never return to. Can never return to. _Doesn’t want_ to return to. His hand tightens on the glass, the condensation making his palm wet. He thinks of rain, and shudders, closing his eyes against the memory of it.

The first ever drops of it, the flood of it, the slow drizzle outside of Azira’s shop window. The patter of it on the arch of an umbrella Crowley held above them both in the park.

He knocks back the rest of the water, and hastily digs out a tip from his pocket, tossing it onto the countertop with a hurried “Grazie!” thrown over his shoulder.

The glare of the sun once he steps outside is enough to make him flinch, shielding his eyes. He barely refrains from slumping against the doorway, defeated. The ache in his chest settles into a dull throb.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to come here, religiosity permeating the heat like a curse. France was always lovely this time of year; the summer wines and food in plentitude.

Paris, he mused, would do just nicely.

* * *

For an angel, Aziraphale didn’t much like flying. Using his own wings would have been preferable, but he could hardly make such a spectacle of himself. There had been quite the commotion the last time he’d tried to travel over rural Italy that way.

He fidgeted uncomfortably with his belt buckle, awkwardly wedged into his seat. It was the only flight available on such short notice. It may have taken a small degree of mischief to ensure he had a seat at all, but he was way past that now. All that mattered was finding Crowley.

Anxiously, he twiddled his thumbs - a nervous habit. Usually, in times like this, Crowley would be near, would brush his knuckles gently across the back of Aziraphale’s hand. It would be a small gesture, easily explained away, but it would always be enough to soothe him. The thought made him chew the inside of his cheek. He did so hope his slapdash divination had been somewhat accurate, and that he wasn’t going on a complete wild goose chase.

He didn’t know if he had it in him to reach out like that again, not for a long while. He just had to hope the brief flashes of Crowley’s whereabouts would be enough to guide him, the vague tug towards the place he’d stood when they had connected - like tracing the trail of a comet.

As the plane made its descent, Aziraphale stared a touch forlorn out of the window. He’d find out soon enough.

* * *

Oh, how Crowley despised boats. Ferries, cruises, dingy’s - the whole lot of them. Great creaking tubs of metal, flung to the perils of the sea. The wind bit at his face, whipping his hair about. The choppy waves were beginning to make him nauseous, but he stared steadfastly at the sealed kiss of the horizon, stubborn as ever.

He missed the days without video evidence, back when he could fly wherever he liked and any one who had the misfortune of spotting him would be declared soundly mad or blessedly pious. And besides, he didn’t trust his precision to magic his car wherever he’d like. He supposed it was for the best, really. The less he did in the way of power, the less those below knew what he was up to. It was hard to keep the image of an omnipotent demon with the strength to withstand holy water when all he used his power to do was make cups of tea. Tidy his apartment. Conjure the odd box of chocolates for Aziraphale. He winced.

Well, he supposed, at least he had no need for those things anymore. Technically, he didn’t need for anything - food and drink were things he only really indulged in when he was around -

He clenched his jaw, looked down at his hands. White knuckled and wind-pinked against the flaking red paint of the railing. This wasn’t working; he wasn’t far enough.

No matter how fast he travelled, the thoughts would find him. Perhaps he needed to allow himself more time. But how much? He couldn’t allow himself another 6000 years to get over him the way he’d spent getting to know him. The heartache had been keen enough when they’d been friends.

He looked out at the endless expanse of the sea, and realised that this - this thing he was trying to do, this extrapolation of himself away from everything he knew - it was going to take a lot more out of him than he’d thought. It was going to take time, and effort. Patience beyond which he was capable.

He’d have to rewrite everything. He’d have to go everywhere they ever went, and superimpose theimage of himself alone over every instance of them together.

He’d have to visit everywhere, cross the thresholds of every building they’d ever entered that was still standing. Colosseums and restaurants and vineyards and aquariums, museums and theatres and libraries. It was near impossible, but it had to be done.

Then, only after all of that, could he rest.

He nodded to himself, once, with a grim set of determination to his jaw. He’d done impossible things before; he could do it again.

* * *

Aziraphale turned helplessly in circles, lost in swathes of green. As far as the eye could see, green, green, green. He hoped that meant he was in somewhat the right place, if Crowley’s bleary mind gave any indication. He also hoped that Crowley wasn’t collapsed somewhere out in the fields, too unconscious to sober himself.

Then, ever so slightly, he felt the weak brush of Crowley’s presence - tentative, as if wary of startling him, slowly dimming to nothing. Doggedly, he followed it across the fields, anxiety knotting in his chest with every step. The feeling was faint, barely there at all, but Aziraphale knew it was him. Nothing else felt like this.

A farmhouse looms out of the fields, breaking up the green, and the trail leads right up to it. Briefly, Aziraphale feels a flash of hope. He follows it all the way to the barn, and meekly peeks inside.

A mans voice startles him something awful, making him jolt and spin around. Its a lean looking man, a little crooked with age and manual labour. His skin is weathered and tan-coloured, softened by the sun. His eyes are hard flints in his face, and his words are less than savoury. Aziraphale didn’t too much like the rake he was wielding to ward him off with, either.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Aziraphale apologises, in what he hopes is passing contemporary Italian. He often gets his classical and vulgar Latin muddled. He shows his palms, stepping away from the barn. “I meant no offence, I’m just looking for a friend.”

The man makes a tsk-ing sound, pressing his tongue against the backs of his teeth. He looks resigned in a way that means he knows what Aziraphale is talking about, which allows for a small sense of relief. The man leans against his rake, makes a so-so gesture about his hair.

“Red hair, drunk,” The man says in English, having supposedly recognised Aziraphale’s particular style of dress. For such little description, Aziraphale has never been more certain in his life that it was Crowley. Those were probably his most distinguishing features, after all. He could only assume the man hadn’t caught sight of his eyes, or this would be a very different conversation.

He nods, anxious to hear whatever this man could tell him.

“Found him in my barn this morning,” The man sighs, looking wholly unimpressed. “He said sorry in a crappy Sicilian accent and left. I think he might have been injured, though. He was walking funny.”

Aziraphale dismisses that out of the gate, waving a hand. “He always walks like that. Has a touch for theatrics. Did you see where he went?”

The man nods in the direction of the road behind Aziraphale, to the West.

“Took off down the road,” He tells him, sounding a little bewildered. “The nearest village is a couple miles that way, he probably fainted in this heat. Idiot tourist.”

Aziraphale gives him an awkward smile, recalling the scalding temperatures Crowley prefers his showers. It was near impossible to overheat a demon, after all. An angel in a three piece suit, however… He dismisses the thought, no use worrying over it. A little heat couldn’t hurt too bad.

He gives his thanks, absent-mindedly blessing his crops for the next few decades in gratitude, and hurries off down the road. He can only hope he can catch up in time.

By the time he reaches the village, the sun is low and the heat is set as thick a molasses. Aziraphale had resorted to taking off his coat and rolling up his sleeves, and had even undone his tie. The state of undress was scandalous, but he had little choice.He’s thankful for the shade of the buildings, or he’d soon faint.

He near stumbles into the first inn he comes across, desperate for a place to sit and collect himself. The room is blessedly cool as he steps inside, a small momentary respite. There are a fewtables sparsely occupied, quiet conversations lulling the ambiance. He tries not to feel too underdressed, and makes his way to the bar, the habit of drinking water like humans do making him crave a glass despite not needing it.

The barkeep gives him a curious look when he orders one, keeps taking glances at him as he pours his glass. As he hands it over, he makes a thoughtful noise, and Aziraphale prepares himself for the inevitable question.

“Don’t mind me asking, signore, but is there a wedding somewhere near?”

Aziraphale blinks a few times, not finding the connection. The man chuckles at his look of confusion, and explains further.

“It’s just, we don’t usually get so may Englishmen this far into the countryside this time of year. No fancy air-conditioners out here, like in the city, you see. I thought maybe there was a wedding - what with all the suits.”

Aziraphale sits up a little straighter, suddenly more alert. “Did a man come in here in a suit? Sunglasses, red hair?”

The man looks a little startled by the sudden question, but slowly begins to nod. “Yes, signore. This morning. Tall, skinny. Dark suit. Had a glass of water and then left. I think I might have offended him somehow.”

Aziraphale lets out a put-upon sigh, slumping with his cheek in his palm. “He’s so easily offended, that sensitive man.” He says it more to himself than anything, unused to going for so long without a companion to speak his worries to. “I never manage to say the right thing.”

“Ahh,” The bartender makes a knowing sound, as if now it all made sense. “Lovers quarrel, signore?”

A few years ago, such an assumption would have made Aziraphale choke on his drink, indignantly stutter out a denial. Now, it just tightens in his chest, miserably resigned.He knew what it looked like to humans, the dependency they’d grown for each other, the affection that passed between them without a second thought. The fond looks he couldn’t stop himself from giving Crowley, the feeling in his chest so far beyond his control. The way Crowley called him _angel._

This thing they had, he’d pointedly never looked too closely at. He loved labels and neat little boxes and finding the exact word to describe something precisely; if he couldn’t find it in any language he’d nudge humans in the right direction of creating one.

But what they had, there was no word for it. There would never be a word for it. It was solely theirs alone.

Lovers was too ephemeral, too muddled up with impulses and passion. They had to be markedly careful, clandestine, they could never give into the strong urge to be closer. Aziraphale may act naïve, but he wasn’t blind. He knew what it meant when they had a little too much to drink, and found themselves a little too close, and sobered up immediately.

He knew what it meant when he caught glimpses of Crowley’s skin not usually bared, the pale jut of his hips, the soft inside of his wrists. He knew what he felt in those moments. He knew he’d caught Crowley looking at him the same way.

_Lovers quarrel_ , have mercy. If only it were that simple. They’d been denying themselves the term lovers since the Crusades. Aziraphale barely let himself speak the word _friend_ without fear of divine punishment coming crashing down upon them.

What passed between them was too elusive for language; certainly human language by any stretch of the imagination. Everything they had was unspoken, and people throwing around misplaced words for them stung like an insult. _Lovers_ was a slight, a mockery, a reminder of what they could never have and a constraint of which they were far passed ever being defined by.

Aziraphale smiled, sadly, knowing he had still yet to answer.

“Something like that,” He muses, looking into his glass. Ardently, he wishes he’d ordered something stronger. More ardently, he misses Crowley. He knocks back the last of the water and gives the barkeep an imploring look. “Do you know where he went?”

This was going to be a long night.

* * *

Crowley gets to the top of the Eiffel tower and gets viciously dizzy. Then, when he comes down, he gets to the bottom of a bottle of Bordeaux and gets infinitely dizzier.

Paris passes by in a pinwheel blur of light and sound, the sleek flash of cars in the night. He’d sat at their favourite restaurant, watched people move around him until they bleared together.

He couldn’t bring himself to eat anything. He’d ordered himself another bottle of wine, and finished that too.

He passes out in some hotel room, and wakes to the soft sounds of bakeries beginning their early preparations. He gets up, and checks out, because there was no point laying still and staring at the walls.

He sits in Aziraphale’s favourite café, orders something Aziraphale would never touch in a million years, just so that - if he ever looks back at this moment now - there will be nothing connecting him to this memory. It’s freshly and lovingly made, something artisanal and expensive, locally sourced. He barely tastes it, and as soon as he’s done he forgets what it’s called. It’s better that way.

He pays, and leaves, and drives to the Louvre. The fake Mona Lisa behind the glass and the roped off square patch of marble floor is almost enough to make him laugh. Almost.

The paintings loom, and his snakeskin heels clack against the stone floors. The statues eyes seem to follow him about the room. There is one he knows is sculpted with Aziraphale as the [muse,](https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/1482588267) remembers the months he had posed for the sculptor. Remembers most vividly the jealousy every time the artist would fuss about the silk drapery around Aziraphale’s thighs.

He achingly wants to avoid that exhibit, but knows it will haunt him if he refuses to look at it. So he magics the tourists away, whole swathes of people suddenly struck by the urge to be elsewhere. He stands alone in the carved out room, legs steadfastly shoulder-width apart, settled at parade rest. The stance does not afford him nearly enough courage as he thought it would.

The statue is time-weathered, but still a vision. Crowley was too stubborn, and still a little too envious, to call it an exact likeness - but it was a damn near thing. The statue looks down at Crowley, with a self-righteous brand of pity. If there was one thing that summed up Aziraphale, it was his condescending sympathy - a benevolence that was somehow handed down from up on a high horse. The sculptor certainly managed to capture that.

Perhaps the most ironic feature of all was the slain serpent-like creature at its feet, grotesque and highly over-exaggerated. Crowley had always wondered whether that was a personal slight against himself that the sculptor felt the need to convey. He’d certainly hissed fussily and gotten under foot enough to be a bother. That’s enough to make him smirk at the memory.

The longer he looks, though, the more the humorous feeling fades from him.

The statues curves boasted of a softness that stone had no right to own. Its hips looked supple enough for Crowley’s fingers to sink into. Even still, Aziraphale had been so slender back then, slimmed to near nothing. The strong planes of his stomach flat, his waist svelte. The firm cords of a forearm, raised with the blunt, bludgeoning weapon.

Crowley much preferred his body now; sated and soft, hearty with years of satisfying meals and comfort in his armchair. The skinny look never did serve him well, but he was glad for the statues dissimilarity. It would make it easier to disconnect the memory of it in his head. If it were only the body, Crowley would have no problem seeing nothing in it alike. But, oh, that face. Those eyes. Those Godforsaken curls.

He remembers sneaking into the studio one night, long after Aziraphale had gone to bed and the sculptor was who knows where. He remembers balancing precariously on the sculptors wooden step ladder, just so he could get a closer look at those curls. How he’d taken such care to capture them, immortalised forever. Such carelessness had bought him face to face with the statue, with the all-knowing likeness of Aziraphale’s eyes, with his gently parted mouth, and Crowley had been helpless to stop himself. He’d leaned in, and the stone had been unforgiving. Cold and unyielding, and he’d pulled back as if it had hurt him, as if the icy touch of marble had come as a shock.

He’d slinked off into the night after that, feeling indignant and oddly scorned. Like a child doing something it wasn’t supposed to, and though he was never caught, he intrinsically knew he’d done something wrong. He couldn’t meet Aziraphale’s eye for months afterward.

The memory of it makes something hurt in his chest. His eyes drift down to the snake at his feet again, twisted in some comic mimicry of agony. Its eyes plead openly up at him, and he makes a noise of distaste. He turns away, shoves his hands into his pockets, and sweeps out of the Louvre like a dark cloud coiling across the skyline.

He spends exactly a week in Paris, not a second more. He doesn’t remember a single moment of it.

* * *

It’s a week before Aziraphale even has an ounce of the power needed to reach out again. He tries, regardless, desperate for anything - any small semblance of a clue as to where Crowley was.

His efforts result in a thunderous headache, near blinding, but it’s enough. Images of the dizzying heights above Paris, flashes of food, of art. The nerve of the man, going to France without him. He knew they were fighting, but that was so far below belt.

Piqued, and near exhausted, he catches a ride to Pisa, the nearest city with an airport. The lady who picks him up is touring Europe, bright-eyed and excitable. He tries to be as polite as he can, fielding her questions, but his mind is elsewhere.

When they arrive, he thanks her, and blesses her journey, and promptly forgets her cheerful response. He’s on the first flight to Paris within the hour.

He presses his eyes closed when the view from the window seat gets too much, when the conversations and crying babies and rustling of snacks all overlap into some amorphous noise, worsening the throb in his temples.

He prays for sleep, but it never comes.

* * *

Crowley travels to Athens, and sits in the hollow bones of the Parthenon when the sun comes up. He almost turns to comment on the colour of the sky, realising too late that the only person he’d tell wasn’t there.

Clearly, it still wasn’t enough. 6000 years worth of habits were hard to break. He sighs, and wanders aimlessly through the ruins, settles in Dionysus’ Theatre until the earliest flocks of tourists begin to arrive.

Listlessly, he walks through the Acropolis museum, the glass floors giving him vertigo. The hall of statues is a little daunting, placed haphazardly around like stalagmites, the monochrome grey-white-cream reminiscent of the bright, stringent corridors of Heaven. He doesn’t stay much longer after that.

He resolves to travel further, and goes to São Paulo, gets swept up by the music festivals and carnivals. The colours and noises reach a fever pitch, and he finds himself overwhelmed, resorts to catching his breath it the botanical gardens of Ibirapuera.

The pond is beautiful, verdant and serene, offering brief respite in the vibrant city. It’s a peace similar to the park at home, a little patch of quiet amongst all the noise. He stares too long into the water, thinks of clandestine meetings on park benches. They always spoke without looking at each other, when they met like this. Just stared into lakes and said their piece.

Crowley wishes he’d looked at him longer. Wishes he’d cherished it more. Wishes he hadn’t been so distant, aloft, pretending not to care and caring so very much. He wishes he’d had the guts to tell him how he felt, just once. Just to see the look on his face. Wishes he knew how he would react.

Would he be offended? Flattered? Would he pretend not to have heard him?

He had to have known. He had to have known how he felt. Crowley gave everything he had to hide it, but he knows it couldn’t be wholly contained. What he felt shone out of him like a solar flare - there was just something in his chest that reached out with everything it had, desperate, aching. Begging to be known. To be looked upon and loved as dearly as it loved.

That need could never be banished from him. He knew this. But he could pry its hands off of something he knew he would never have.

He looked skyward, repentant and wretched. The sun beat down, merciless and unforgiving, and there was an irony to it that he didn’t want to look too closely at. He closed his eyes against it, and his smile was a small crooked line, just a tad bitter. More a surrender than anything.

He rocks back up to his feet, defeated. He leaves São Paulo in a similar state that he’d entered; worn down and love-haunted.

The pond and the flowers had reminded him of his affinity for peace; a place to reflect and look inward and do little else for vast stretches of time. In all honesty, without the pressures of work and the precious little company he kept, he’d forgotten how forgiving solitude could be.

_Don’t have to be anything when you’re on your own_ , He tells himself, thinking of abandoned temples in endless, quiet rainforests. _I can be as miserable or heartless as I like. I can be anything I want. I can be nothing._

He was already thinking of the ways to strip himself of this identity, this life he’d built. If nothing else, serpents were changeable. He could starve himself of food and affection and company and any other worldly need for weeks, months, years at a time. He could shed this version of himself as easily as shedding skin. What did he need company for? What need had he for conversation? For righteous judgement? For some mimicry of Heavens shallow love, the same love given to all things, the uniform, unspecial, insignificant light of Aziraphale’s attention?

_Love all God’s creations_ , Crowley thinks bitterly. Even the Godless creatures such as him. He’d been a fool to hope for anything different.

Aziraphale had fancied some harmless temptation here and there, had agreed to their arrangement and seen it through to the end. Crowley had been naïve, tangled up in his own small print, had mistaken politeness for fondness, civility for friendship. He’d ached for more, and left himself open, allowed Aziraphale to see him vulnerable - wanting all the things that an angel would condemn as heinous. He’d wanted too much, for too long, and finally he’d tripped up on his own heartstrings, messy and foolish and far too hopeful. He’d overshot; he only had himself to blame. Aziraphale had made it clear that they weren’t friends from the start.

Still, it aches. Crowley resigns himself to the knowledge that it will ache forever; but with enough time, with enough distance and nothingness in-between, he could forget the name of the ache. He could forget what caused it. Maybe, one day, distant, he might think of the ache as no less part of him than his palms, his birdcage ribs, his sharp incisors. One day him and the ache will melt into each other like darkness against darkness.

He leaves the Bentley parked in some overcrowded street in São Paulo. He had no use for it for where he was going.

* * *

By the time Aziraphale touches down in Brazil, he’s exhausted in a way he didn’t even know he was capable of. Paris had been a wild goose chase, catching the faintest traces of Crowley in restaurants and cafés and museums but ultimately finding them empty of him. When he’d finally followed the trace to Rome, the ruins had felt like less like a monument and more like a graveyard.

It felt like with every step Aziraphale took, Crowley was getting further away.There was no rhyme or reason to the places he went, no simple route. He’d zigzag about, double back on himself, settle briefly, never long enough for Aziraphale to catch up. Leave the vaguest shadow of himself and then move on, as if taunting him, leave him rattling along behind him like cans tied to his memory.

There’s a tight little cluster of his energy settled on a park bench in central São Paulo, and Aziraphale near collapses into it, wearisome and aching. He already knew without a hint of a doubt that Crowley was long gone. He just couldn’t keep up, their paths refused to overlap long enough for them to meet.

He put his head in his hands, felt the people of the city move around him as though he were a stone rooted in the river bed. When he finds the strength to open his eyes, the glare of the sun off the still water of the lake made his eyes ache, but he daren’t look away.

He grit his teeth, and though he scarcely had the strength, he reached out.

_Crowley!_ He sent the beg across the ocean, across deserts, across the acres and acres of forests. He let his righteous anger seethe through his words. _Where are you?_

He’d always felt the connection engaging before he ever heard Crowley respond, like the lock of a safe sliding into place, clicking open. Right now, there was nothing, just white noise like the line of a phone going dead. He closed his eyes, reached out further.

Then, sudden as a shock of ice, the connection snaps shut. Like a cord ripping into shreds, like a trap clamping tight around an animals leg. Aziraphale gasps out, just catches himself short of falling forward. He grips the sides of the bench, eyes shuttering against the pain.

“Você está bem? Senhor?”

The voice is soft, concerned. It takes Aziraphale a moment to register what had been asked of him.

“I’m perfectly alright,” He manages, it what he hopes is passing Portuguese. “Silly migraines, my dear.”

The younger man looks unconvinced when Aziraphale tries to give him a small smile. He didn’t want to draw anymore attention to himself, certainly not when his power was so unsettled, like it had been yanked away from its moorings.

“I think I’ll head home, and get some rest,” Aziraphale tells the man, and gets to his feet. He manages another small smile, and pats the man reassuringly on the arm, heading back in the direction of the busy streets.

He tries desperately not to sway on his feet. Crowley had shut him out.

Crowley had heard him calling out and brought down a severance like a guillotine, slammed the door shut between them.

He feels as though he were underwater. His ears were ringing, his chest felt full of hornets. He felt as though a light breeze would set him crumbling into dust.

He walks without direction, without any clear destination in mind, feeling as if he wanders endlessly. People bump into him and he doesn’t have the clarity of mind to apologise, just wanders on, knowing he needs to get away from something but not knowing how to escape.

The Bentley is probably the only thing that could have given him pause, short of its owner. It was parked on some nondescript street some miles from Ibirapuera, abandoned. Crowley hadn’t even bothered to disguise it with one of those clever tricks of his. Just left to collect parking tickets like leaves, left to get sun-bleached and clamped and eventually towed away.

Crowley loved this car. It seemed a silly thing to think of as important in the current state of affairs, but he dearly loved it. He didn’t often love many things, he loved sparingly and sparsely and deeply. He didn’t throw things away carelessly; he didn’t give things up easily.

Now, he’d left everything in his apartment. Everything he owned, his few belongings, his few memories. His art and his desk and his plants. His stupid phone. His ridiculous, outdated, flashy car.

His awful, oblivious, heartbroken, selfish friend.

“Senhor?”

Aziraphale is too dissociated to feel shock, simply blinks at the lady in uniform addressing him.

“Is this your vehicle?”

Aziraphale looks through the windshield, recalls how many times he’d sat in the passenger seat. How many words had passed between them over the divide.He’d never learned how to drive, no matter how many times Crowley had offered to teach him. Just the thought of Crowley positioning his hands on the wheel with his own had been enough to make his hands shake.

“Yes,” He says, and his voice registers as distant from himself, separate. “It belongs to me.”

* * *

The great expanse of the rainforest failed to bring him peace. He thought the endless verdancy and the resonating echo of running water would finally settle his heart. All it did was remind him of Eden; of the day they met.

It made him feel helplessly young and impossibly old. It made him feel his heartache as keenly as when it had been freshly dealt, when he realised he didn’t mean nearly as much to Aziraphale as he had come to mean to him.

He tried catharsis, climbed to the highest point of the tallest tree, screamed until his lungs ached and all the birds had fled. It only left him feeling like the child he had been when he was cast out of Heaven, left him crying until it robbed him of what little breath he had.

He’d tried meditation, breathed in and out and in and out until he could feel the swell of every tide on every planet, every water-swept moon. He’d grounded himself until he could feel the Earth move, until he could feel every shuddering movement of the plates shifting on the mantle.

All reflection did was bring him revelations he did not want. He could go anywhere in the universe, and he realised it wouldn’t matter. This feeling would follow him, dogged. Relentless.

With a vividness, he missed Aziraphale. He wanted to go home. He hated himself for weakness, for never learning from his own mistakes. Hated how he was always too impatient for time to purge himself of anything.

Wretchedly, he noted that he had lost track of time. How long had he been in this infernal rainforest? How long had the sounds mocked him? How he ever thought such a place would be peaceful was beyond him.

The last thought had him standing, incensed.If he stayed here, he would stagnate. He would rot like a fallen tree. He’d turn to the earth beneath his feet.

He realised meditation was not the answer. His thoughts and himself had never really been on friendly terms.

With a burst of intent, he banished himself further. The cold hit him like a scorned lover, a sharp slap across the face. It burned his lungs, and he revelled in it. Against the sweltering humidity of of a rainforest, the bitter winds of a tundra was a healing balm.

He walked the blank slate of wasteland, let the cold burn any thoughts out of him. The days passed in a blur of barely there stretches of sunlight, lasting mere hours at a time, increasingly less until there was only the night. The white landscape in darkness was eerie, but it managed to keep any thoughts at bay. What could possibly remind him of anything if there was nothing here?

When he gets to the peak of some nameless mountain, he no longer knows how long he had been walking. It could have been weeks, it could have been months. He finds he cares little for the unending ribbon of time here. What could possibly matter less here, than time? If there is nothing to mark its passage, when the polar nights swallow up all hope of daylight?

In his blissful dissociation, he becomes complacent. He feels he’s earned rest, however brief. He settles on the hard ground and looks out at the landscape, manages to seek out the thin strip of ocean at the horizon, where the dark sky meets it in precious little contrast.

Then, a startling brilliance of light cracks the horizon open. For a moment, Crowley cannot understand what is happening. The reflective sheet of ice mirrors a halo of light back into the sky, and he finally understands. It was the sun, returned. He can’t recall why he thought it would never come back. It’s warmth kisses his cheek, and he closes his eyes against it, reverent. The tears freeze against his skin, and laughter bubbles out of him, startlingly clear after such long silence.

_Crowley!_

His eyes flash open, the laughter cuts out like silence after a gunshot. He scrambles to his feet, palms cut against the ice. He knows that voice. There’s red against the snow.

_Where are you?_

He clutches his head, shuts it out with all his might. Why was he remembering his voice now? What good would it do him? How much further removed did he have to be for it to stop?

He had to go further. What would a few weeks on the moon matter? Finally, he could have silence.He could sleep on the dark side of it, catch his breath.

And if that didn’t work, he could go further. Saturn, Neptune, Eris. Why stop there? Why stay amongst this universe, why bind himself here, smaller than his means? He could go anywhere, _anywhere._

_There’s nothing keeping me here,_ He told himself. _I can return whenever I like, or never at all._

He gives one last look into the sun, lets it simmer against his retinas, lets the blinding light be the last thing before he closes his eyes.

And then, with a blink, he is gone.

* * *

The thing with time and space is that they distort each other. The further Crowley gets, the more time passes for Aziraphale. His trail goes cold in Svalbard, though the irony fails to amuse him.

He touches the ground, scorched by the burst of Crowley’s energy signature. It’s the last thing he touches with any semblance of Crowley’s presence for weeks. For months. When a year stretches, yawns, turns itself over, when it turns into 5 years, when it turns into 10, Aziraphale grows weary. He reminds himself he’d managed for longer stretches of time without him before, but he cannot for the life of him remember how.

He puts all his belongings in holding, tucked around Crowley’s Bentley. He sells the bookshop.

The house by the sea - with the bookshelves and the garden and the armchairs tucked next to each other -it all gets sold to someone else. That seemed like such a long time ago, now. He cannot recall why it had mattered so much to him, why he had been so worried. He can’t remember why he even thought he needed a home in the first place.

He hops the islands of Solomon, he walks the Great Victoria desert, the Serengeti. He walks the length of the Amazon, and the Wall of China, the Alps. He visits places he can’t recall the name of, goes to the highest altitudes and the depths of the ocean and busiest and emptiest places on Earth.

When he finds nothing, he settles long enough to gather the strength to go further. If there is anything more abysmal than calling someones name in the vacuum of space, Aziraphale had yet to find it.

By the time he reaches Eris, he barely has the strength to stand. He doesn’t know if he’ll have the strength to get back to Earth, let alone search further. He’d never been as strong as Crowley, never had the power he managed to tap into. He doesn’t remember what it felt like to be rested, to feel peace. He looks out into the swathes of time and space between this universe and the next, and feels the last of his hope leave him.

He was finished, he knew. He had nothing left to give. Defeated, his eyes turn heavenward, and banished what little pride he had left.

“Please,” He says, barely cognisant of what he was pleading for, unable to put what he needed into words. He knew if he spoke them aloud, he would weep. “ _Please._ ”

He weeps anyway, wretched. His precious little strength leaves him, and he kneels. It’s cathartic, in the same way a river breaking its banks was cathartic. He could feel himself bowing under the weight, like ice breaking underfoot.

He closes his eyes against it, lets it press him down, lets it better him. Just this once, until he has the strength to stand. He doesn’t know how long he lays there. He wonders if this is sleep, wonders if he could stay here until Crowley came back to him. What he would do if he found him here like this? Would even wake him at all?

He wonders if Crowley would laugh if he knew Aziraphale prayed still, sometimes. It stained his cheeks pink just to imagine it. He’d kneel beside a bed, like a child. He’d pray for fair weather, and good harvest, for the wellness and happiness of all things, and for Crowley.

_May he have a pleasant day. May his tea always be warm when he goes to drink it, may he always be rested._

Those prayers seemed useless, now, in light of things. He hopes his inane wishes of the past did nothing to dull the potency of his prayers now, when they were finally important.

_May he come home_ , Aziraphale implored, eyes shut. _May he be safe._

Something clenches in his chest, tight. His face creases with the pain of it.

_May he forgive me._

__

* * *

Crowley didn’t know what possessed him to return to Earth. If he weren’t already demonic, he would have thought it was the Devil. And if he were a little more pious, perhaps he would have called it divine intervention.

As it was, he called it a whim. Enough time had passed that he hadn’t dismissed the thought of coming back outright, though he couldn’t specify how much. Time had been a finicky acquaintance to Crowley, seldom dipping in when it fancied, and leaving just as easily. All it took was a little push, and Crowley could be untethered for whole centuries. It wasn’t like it mattered.

Besides, he never said he wouldn’t ever return. He could do whatever he liked, now he was free of any commitment, any home. He could wander forever, go anywhere he wanted. It just so happened he wanted to be in a busy little marketplace in… Marrakech.

All he knew was that he felt compelled to be here. Like something had tied a rope to his sternum and _tugged._

The colourful stalls and the endless sashes of patterned cloth gave him no answers. The earthy scents and spices were heady enough to follow for a time, and it was certainly a place of plentiful temptation, perfect for all manner of greed and theft and coercion, but Crowley had little use for those sorts of things anymore.

The more he searched, the less he understood what had brought him here. It was only when he glimpsed the shock of pale hair that he realised his mistake.

Of course, by then, it was already too late. Their eyes had locked, and the row of stalls between them seemed to blur, shimmer out of focus. Crowley couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears, couldn’t see but for his face, his eyes, that merciless blue, shocked wide.

He startled out of it violently, knocking over some straw baskets around his legs, spilling their contents. He didn’t stick around to apologise to the person manning the stall, could barely register the commotion he caused in his wake over the rushing blood in his ears.

The swathes of people he pushed through made similarly indignant noises, but he couldn’t stop. He could barely breathe - he had to get away.

Only when his blind rush led him to a dead end did he stop to catch his breath, hand shaking where it held him upright against a wall. He waited just long enough for his panic to simmer into something more manageable before trying to summon the energy to escape, to magic himself somewhere far away from here - anywhere would do, if only he could calm down long enough to figure out -

“ _Don’t._ ”

His mind went blank at the sound of it, like a fuse going out. His hand came up to tug the black shawl further around his face, even though he knew it was too late, knew he had been seen.

Neither of them moved, and Crowley daren’t speak. What could he say? Why had he even followed him, what did he want from him, what could they possibly have to say to each other?

“Please,” He said, and the emotion in it made Crowley sway a little, lightheaded. He closed his eyes against it, confused, dizzy, aching. He felt vaguely sick. “Look at me.”

He could do little else but obey; he’d lost all self agency, all individual thought. He was completely blank. Shakily, he turned to face him, let his arms fall to his sides in surrender. Meeting his gaze felt monumental, impossible, he could barely lift his head in increments, terrified of what he would do if he looked upon him again, after so long -

But then there he was, standing there in front of him. Head to toe in white, like some kind of _cliché_ , like some kind of mockery, some mirror opposite of Crowley’s dark clothes - just like the day they met, and Crowley wondered if this was some cruel joke, wondered if perhaps this was his punishment, after all, wondered if he were kept in some purgatorial loop, if he’d ever really left Hell -

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said his name on an out-breath, like it had been taken from him. His mouth trembled, his eyelashes seemed to shiver. He wasn’t crying, but he was inconsolable, Crowley knew; he could tell just by looking at him.

Why did he sound so upset? He had been planning to leave him anyway, what difference did it make if Crowley had left first?

“Where _were_ you?”

The question knocks him a little, but the shake of his voice unsteadies him more. He sounded devastated, like everything Crowley had felt over the last few decades had all be compacted into Aziraphale’s voice.

“I was - travelling.” The word falls flat; fails to even come close to where he had been, what he had done, what he had felt. What he still feels. He knew his answer was petulant, but refuses to elaborate. He doesn’t even know what he could say if he tried.

“Travelling?” Aziraphale repeats, as if it were something foreign, something he didn’t understand. His face contorted around the word, like it tasted bitter. He took a step forward as he said it, and he was - _He was angry_ , Crowley realised. _He was furious_. “ _Travelling?_ For 23 years? Without telling anyone?”

Crowley’s forehead creased. “Who would I tell?”

“Anyone! Anyone at all, Crowley!”

Crowley knew he should be heeding his anger, should probably be responding with some of his own - but stars above, his _voice,_ how long had it been since he heard his voice?How long had it been since he’d been so close? 23 years? Is that all? It had felt like forever, it had felt like eternity.

Aziraphale was dithering, nerves frayed to pieces, wringing his hands in his anger, rubbing his arms - as if he were cold in the blistering summer months of the middle east.

“Someone, just - anything, a note would have been enough,” He paced about in the narrow alleyway, gesturing as though his emotions came out of him in bursts. Crowley found himself mesmerised by his palms, his wrists, his mouth as it moved. “Anything at all, just so I’d have a hope in hell of finding you!”

Crowley narrowed his eyes, his forehead creasing again. Nothing Aziraphale was saying made any sense.

“Why would I want you to find me?”

It’s enough to make Aziraphale pause mid-step, he even staggers a little; as if Crowley slapped him, as if what he’d said stung enough to warrant a flinch.

The shock on his face was quickly flooded with anger, familiar, incensed.

“I called for you! Again and again, and you never answered!”

Crowley scoffs, looks skyward. What did any of that matter? He called him to tell him he was leaving, that he’d never see him again? Was that it?

“I left my phone - ”

“I know!” Aziraphale cuts in, voice near hysterical. “I went to your Godforsaken flat and you weren’t fucking there!”

He blinked a handful of times, his mouth trying to form a response. He can’t remember the last time he’d heard Aziraphale swear, if ever. All he can seem to manage is a half-hearted admonishment, near delirious; “ _Language,_ Aziraphale.”

He knows immediately that it had been the wrong thing to say. A thousand emotions seem to pass over Aziraphale’s expression before it settles on some heart-wrenching mixture of agony and wrath. Tears spring unbidden, as though that had been all it took to wreck the dam inside of him, and they steam down his face.

“ _Fuck you,_ ” He seethes, livid. He takes a step and shoves Crowley, grabs his clothes and pushes him against the wall. Crowley is about to defend himself, ask Aziraphale what in the several hells he thought he was doing, before he realised Aziraphale was still talking, speaking in great unending streams, “ - I’ve been looking everywhere - I haven’t stopped - I thought you were _dead_ \- ”

“Dead? Don’t be ridiculous, Aziraphale - ”

“I went to Hell. To ask about you - ”

“You did _what?”_ He grabs Aziraphale’s wrists, forces him to look him in the eye. “Are you out of your mind? Do you know how dangerous - ”

“Do you think I was thinking straight? You’d been gone for _12 years_ , Crowley - I didn’t have a lot of options left.”

Crowley felt the anger rise to meet him, felt it simmer into something more vicious.

“How about leaving well enough alone? How about that as an option?”

He uses his grip on his wrists to rattle him, like that would finally shake some sense into him. All Aziraphale did was look up at him, face so vulnerably open, and his eyes seemed to search for something in Crowley’s expression, desperate.

“Without knowing if you were alright?” Aziraphale implores, and Crowley tried not to let it show on his face how shaken he was. “Without understanding in the _slightest_ why you’d just _gone_ \- without telling me _anything_ \- ”

“I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself, Aziraphale.” He deflects, trying for some emotional distance. He didn’t owe him anything, much less an explanation. “I was fine.”

“You weren’t fine!” Aziraphale insists, becoming increasingly distraught. Crowley didn’t know how much longer he could stand looking into his crying face without breaking down himself, without his knees giving in, without giving Aziraphale whatever he wanted just to make him stop. “I called out to you and you told me that you weren’t safe! What was I supposed to do? Just sit there and wait?”

The memory of it is vague, barely there at all, but Crowley is glad for the brick wall and the solid weight of Heavens righteous anger against his chest or he may have stumbled.

That night in Italy, so desperate for company he thought he’d hallucinated a voice. So it had been Aziraphale all along, and then again that time on the mountain. Why had Aziraphale been so insistent on finding him if he wanted nothing to do with him? Why call out at all if he were going to leave him anyway?

“Are you my keeper? Do you need to know where I am at all times, God’s oh-so-holy shepherd?” Crowley hisses, confused and angry. “Why look for me at all? Why not just be glad that I was gone?”

Aziraphale seemed to lose all the fight in him then, as if his bone deep exhaustion had caught up to him all at once. He swayed with the weight of it, his grip on Crowley’s clothes going slack. He lets his arms fall to his sides, breathes out a little noise of defeat. He hangs his head.

“Enough, Crowley,” He pleaded, and his voice is tired, so, so _tired._ “I know we are immortal, but _enough_. I cannot keep wasting years - decades of our lives - worried sick about you, not knowing if I’ll ever get to see you again - I can’t do it. I cannot. Either come home, or leave for good, but don’t keep me guessing which it will be.”

Crowley feels something bitter curl in his stomach, a nastiness he could never quite rid himself of no matter how hard he tried. He leans into his space, obnoxious, craning his face down to get Aziraphale to look at him.

“This _was_ me, leaving for good, don’t you see that?” He snarls, gesturing wide. “Why would I want you to find me?”

Aziraphale’s expression pinches into something pained, betrayed.

“I don’t understand - ”

“What’s not to understand?” Crowley cuts him off. “I’m not doing Hell’s ill-will, you’re not doing Heaven’s bidding. There’s no need for you to come find me anymore - you should have just stayed in your blessed bookshop, saved yourself the trouble.”

“So, that’s it then?” Aziraphale retorts, indignant. “Now our little deal is up - we’ll have nothing to do with each other?”

Crowley sneers, fires back; “You made it very clear that we have nothing else in common, so why bother?”

The look Aziraphale gives him is reproachful, his voice a low warning. “You know I never meant those things that I said. It was the end of everything, and every word out of your mouth was blasphemy! I was scared for you!”

“You were only scared for yourself! Of what your precious God would think of you - for - for _fraternising_ with the enemy!” Crowley feels the bitterness crawl out of his stomach, felt it pad a hot path up his throat, settle on his tongue. He felt his eyes sting. “What has She ever promised you, that I would not do? That I have not _done_? You always choose - you always choose _Her_ \- why can’t you just - _why can’t it be me?_ ”

His vision blurred, and he felt heat spill down his cheeks. His body had betrayed him, his voice cracking around his words, splintering around the edges. He thought he was strong enough to get through this without showing weakness, without showing what this did to him, what Aziraphale still meant to him - but he realises he had been a fool for even thinking it. Of course this would crack him open. Of course this would ruin him; it was all he had left.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, and Crowley felt him bring his palms up to his wet cheeks. “ _Oh, my love -_ ”

Crowley turned his face away, grit his teeth. He didn’t need the pity.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” He wills his tears to stop, hopes Aziraphale will see them as tears of anger and nothing else. He knows it’s a shallow hope, knows Aziraphale had always been able to see right through to the core of him.

“It does, it does matter,” Aziraphale insists, and his hand comes up to bury itself in the swathes of cloth near Crowley’s waist; as if to ground him there with him, as if to hold onto him. “If it hurt you, it matters. Is this why you left?”

“I’m not having this conversation with you - ”

“I always wondered if it may have been something I said, when you came to the bookshop that day - the last time we say saw each other. You’d been so upset - I couldn’t understand what I’d done wrong.”

Crowley gave him an incredulous look, appalled. He tried to pull away, but Aziraphale held on, looking fearful like he was just going to disappear in front of his eyes.

“You - ” Crowley hisses, voice vicious, accusatory. “You wouldn’t even let me in. Wouldn’t let me across the threshold, like I was something evil - to be cast out. You wouldn’t look me in the eye, and you were lying to me - ”

“Crowley - ”

“I’d been waiting for _weeks_ \- just for you to call - to knock on my door - and when I finally worked up the guts to come ask to be around you, you made up some _excuse_. You _lied_ to me. What was I supposed to think? After all the things you said?”

“I was - ”

“You were _leaving_ me, Aziraphale,” Crowley feels that turn his stomach, just to say it aloud, just to be reminded of how he felt. “I _heard_ you, on the phone. Was it just as perfect as you’d hoped? Was it far enough away? Why are you bothering to keep up this fucking _façade_ when we both know you want nothing to do with me?”

Aziraphale breathes out, shakily. Finally, he is silent. Finally, he had nothing else to say. His face is unreadable, solemn and blank.

_Well_ , Crowley thinks. _That was it then._

Aziraphale’s hand had fallen from his robes, unable to hold on. Unwilling to hold on. Crowley goes to turn away, but then Aziraphale speaks.

“I didn’t go.”

It’s said quietly, barely there at all, but Crowley hears it. He creases his face in confusion.

“What?”

“To the viewing,” Aziraphale clarifies, resigned. “I didn’t go.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Crowley clears his throat, wanting this to be over, wanting the knotting twist in his chest to go away.

“I didn’t go because I was supposed to be going with you,” He frets with his own clothes, like it was poor comfort for what he really wanted to hold. “It was meant to be a surprise. That’s why I couldn’t let you in, the shop was a mess with all the paperwork littered about.”

Crowley doesn’t say anything to that - he couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come.

“I mean, I say it was a surprise - In all honesty, I don’t think I had the courage to ask you. I think I was leaving it to the last minute, avoiding you, because the thought of you saying no frightened me so terribly - ”

“Saying no to what?” Crowley whispers, barely able to get the words out.

“I was - ” Aziraphale falters, ducks his head. His voice trembles. “I was going to ask you to move in with me. To come live with me - I wanted you to see it, before you answered.”

Aziraphale manages to lift his head, meekly. He offers a small, shaky smile.

“It _was_ perfect. Not too far away, I shouldn’t think. I thought we could visit Soho, if we ever missed it,” He can’t quite seem to meet Crowley’s gaze, too embarrassed, too open. He kept talking, like he was trying to get the nerves out. He’d never been good at showing weakness, but he was trying. It felt like an offering. “It had enough room for all my books. It had a garden for your plants. I had all these ideas about walking along the tide with you, about sitting in our armchairs in front of the bay windows - drinking tea, reading, napping in the afternoons.”

He makes a little self-deprecating noise, like he was derisively amused at his own weakness.

“I was so wrapped up in my own little make-believe world that I didn’t realise how you were feeling,” He makes himself meet Crowley’s eyes, sincere. “And I need you to know how sorry I am.”

Crowley draws in a breath at the fierce honesty in Aziraphale’s eyes, feels himself begin to shake his head, tries to take a step back, frightened at the prospect of believing him.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale implores, desperately needing him to understand. “I’m supposed to love everything. All things, I am to cherish and forgive. And somethings are so terribly hard to love, to even tolerate. But with you -I didn’t even have to try. It came to me so easily, so gently, I barely noticed. I tried not to notice, because it’s dangerous, Crowley - how much I - ”

He cuts himself off, overwhelmed. He tries again.

“I tried not to notice, but it’s impossible to ignore it when you’re gone. And I can’t stand it when you’re gone, Crowley. I’ve tried it, time and time again - every time you left me, I tried to give you up. It makes me sick to my stomach. You leave, and I don’t eat. I can’t read, the words swim. I don’t leave my rooms, just list about like a ghost.I need you to come home, or take me with you. Or - or tell me to leave you alone for good, but you can’t just _disappear_ again - ”

“I - didn’t know you felt like that.” Crowley almost doesn’t realise he’d been the one to speak, just felt the confession pulled from him against his will. He felt like time was slowing down just to allow them this moment.

Aziraphale sends him a little tentative glance, hopeful and a little frustrated. “Oh, bollocks you didn’t know,” He huffs, sounding two parts irritated and three parts amused. “I light up every time you come into the room. Everyone I talk to thinks we’re married, just by the way I talk about you. It’s getting embarrassing, how obvious I am - ”

“It wasn’t obvious to me,” Crowley tells him, meek. He tries to convey his sincerity with his voice, tries to soften everything about himself just to be forgiven. All of this, all of it, just because Crowley didn’t trust him enough to ask. Because he’d misunderstood, and ran away like a child.

“Do you still need me to say it?” Aziraphale asks him, vulnerable. Imploring. “After all this, you’re still unsure? You don’t believe me?”

Crowley knows it would be too much to ask for him to say it aloud, knew that what he had been given was more than he would ever deserve.

“I believe you,” Crowley breathes, quiet. He feels weightless, he feels like a burden, like Aziraphale was bearing the brunt of everything for his sake. “You don’t need to say it.”

“Good,” Aziraphale nods, straightens out his clothes. Crowley can already see him rearranging himself, putting himself back together into his perfect, aloof self after such a crass show of emotion. He clears his throat, looks distinctly embarrassed. “Because I love you, so there’s - there’s that, squared away.”

He says it like someone would conclude a business deal. Like it was all he could do, to keep it sounding professional, or he’d crumble under the weight of it. Crowley feels it through his chest like a sword on fire.

Oh, and Crowley had been so close, too. So close to composure. What a pity.

His body moves on it’s own, and he gives into it, powerless. He remembers the statue, cold and unforgiving in the empty expanse of the study, lips unyielding.

This was nothing like that. Aziraphale was so impossibly warm, so vital, so full of life. He was brimming with it, it shone from him like starlight, and he made this noise like a sob. He kissed him back, and it felt like he was giving in to drowning, pressed into it, desperate. Crowley didn’t know if it was Aziraphale’s tears on his cheeks or his own.

“I love you,” Crowley tells him, against his mouth, through a desperate little breath. He kisses him again, kisses him between small handfuls of words he manages to gasp aloud. “Since Eden - I’ve loved you, forever- ”

Aziraphale sobs again, breathless. He lets go of Crowley’s clothes for the brief moment it takes him to miracle them somewhere more secret.

It startles Crowley a little, takes him by surprise. He takes in the room, the pale walls, the open windows, the white sheets. Aziraphale’s sparse belongings tucked neatly in an open suitcase on the floor. The tartan is so familiar it makes Crowley’s chest ache.

“Where are we?” He asks, though he finds he cares little. He was asking more to mask his embarrassment, the realisation that he’d kissed Aziraphale beginning to sink in.

Aziraphale had no such reservations, fussily taking off Crowley’s headscarf before removing his own.

“Not far,” He tells him, pulling him close again to kiss. “Still Marrakech, just my rooms - ”

He didn’t elaborate further, seemingly more distracted by removing Crowley’s clothes. Crowley could do little but be swept along with it, shaking apart every time Aziraphale paused his ministrations to kiss him, to hold his face. He kept looking at him like he was something he cherished, coveted, and Crowley almost couldn’t bare it.

“You’re growing your hair long,” Aziraphale noticed, seemingly only realising as he ran his hands through it. “I love your hair long.”

Crowley didn’t know why, but that made him cry more. He held Aziraphale’s face, pressed his lips against his cheeks, his closed eyelids, the corners of his mouth. Aziraphale let out a shaky breath at the affection, bringing his hands up to hold Crowley’s wrists. He guided Crowley’s right hand from his cheek, and pressed a kiss to his palm, before sliding his hands back into Crowley’s hair and kissing him again.

It was only when they were wearing little more than their undergarments that Crowley felt a little flash of panic, twisting in his stomach. Aziraphale was guiding them both to the bed, kissing him still, and Crowley pulls away, fearful. Aziraphale falls back a little in shock, thankfully managing to sit on the bed behind him.

“Angel - ” He starts, and his voice is small.“I’m not - are we - ? I don’t think I’m - ”

Aziraphale’s startled expression turns into one of realisation, a little horrified.

“No, you fool,” He admonishes, sounding offended that Crowley would even suggest such a thing. “We’re not - I mean, I wasn’t suggesting that we do _that_ \- ”

Crowley doesn’t mean to flinch, but it’s out of his control. He wasn’t ready to - not yet anyway, but to think that Aziraphale wouldn’t ever want -

“I mean,” Aziraphale clears his throat, waits until Crowley meets his eyes. “Not until you’ve bought me dinner, at the very least.”

Crowley goes pink, eyes opening a little in shock. _Oh._

“I just wanted - to be closer,” Aziraphale explains, fretting a little with his hands. He looks down, embarrassed. “Without all the clothes in the way. I wasn’t really thinking - I should have asked - ”

Crowley goes to his knees, so that Aziraphale will look at him. He knew exactly what it felt like to know every square inch of distance away from each other, to know just how far away he had been.

“Closer,” Crowley says, softly. He takes Aziraphale’s hands, feeling a little shiver go through him at the heat of Aziraphale’s thighs beneath his wrists. He meets his eyes. “I can do closer.”

Aziraphale draws a small breath, manages a little smile in offering. Crowley returns it, before bowing to press a kiss to Aziraphale’s cupped palms, returning the soft gesture he’d bestowed upon him earlier.

Aziraphale takes Crowley’s face in his hands again, and Crowley leans into it, reverent, lets Aziraphale guide him up to be kissed.

He moves back onto the bed, slowly as Crowley kisses him, following. He couldn’t bare to think of how naturally this came to them, how right it felt, how long he had wanted this. He didn’t want to think about how easily he took what he wanted - anything he fancied, great works of art, flashy cars, designer clothes, expensive food. He didn’t want to think about the only thing he ever truly needed had to be freely given. He didn’t want to think of how his greatness weakness didn’t reach 6 foot and was fond of teacakes. He didn’t want to think on what that said about him.

He wanted affection, he wanted kindness, he wanted to hold Aziraphale forever. He deserved none of it.

So he banished all thoughts, focused solely on Aziraphale’s mouth, his hands, his soft chest. He magicked them undercover, did away with their undergarments just to hear Aziraphale gasp into his mouth. He didn’t expect the shaky moan, and it made him shiver.

Finally, there was nothing between them. Not time or space or distance. Not oceans or forests or deserts - not the great aching expanse of nothingness. Not a thread of cloth. Aziraphale’s skin was so warm Crowley feared it would brand him, felt as though he might catch the covers alight. It was the purest thing he’d ever felt, like it was scorching the sin out of him.All he knew was that if it killed him, it would have been worth it.

Either way, he wasn’t planning on ever letting go.

* * *

Aziraphale lay awake, gazing heavenward. The ceiling was blank, white, featureless. He was unsure of what he was waiting for. Perhaps the sky to open up, to deliver divine punishment in a blinding streak of light.

He found that didn’t scare him like it did before. He wondered why he ever thought he had to fear something that was supposed to love him. He realised it no longer mattered.

Crowley was sleeping soundly, head against his chest. His long hair spilled over the white sheets, and Aziraphale knew with a suddenness that he loved the colour red. Loved his snake eyes, his sharp little teeth, his sharp cheeks, his sharp nose. Everything about Crowley was sharp, vivid and tempting and beautiful and everything Aziraphale shouldn’t want.

For the life of him he couldn’t remember why. He thought about apples, their red flesh. Thought about sinking his teeth in, eating until he was full, sated. Until his mouth was sticky and sweet. He thought of kissing Crowley like that, letting him taste the fruit from his tongue.

He couldn’t remember why something so loving could ever be a sin. He considered asking for forgiveness, wondered if he were already too far gone if he was questioning God’s simplest rule.

He opened his mouth, to pray, the plead, he didn’t know which. But then he knew, with a vividness, that he was already forgiven.

Crowley had forgiven him. Wholly, entirely, completely. He didn’t even have to ask.

He closed his mouth.

He looked down at Crowley laying next to him, soft and safe and trusting. If he’d known surrender felt like this, he wouldn’t have done it centuries ago. He would have surrendered the day they met.

He presses a kiss to the crown of Crowley’s head, runs the backs of his fingers lightly across his hair. He feels Crowley’s arm curl tighter around his waist, protective. He wonders why he had ever feared anything when Crowley was next to him.

Then, slowly, Crowley stirs, eyes blinking awake. He feels Aziraphale’s gaze on him, and looks up into his face, looking muddled with sleep and a little startled.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, sounding worried.

“Nothing,” Aziraphale soothes, voice soft. He cards his fingers through Crowley’s hair, relishes the little shiver he gives at the touch. “Just looking at you.”

Crowley’s brow creases, and he gives him a concerned look, like he thought maybe Aziraphale had finally lost it. He sits up, leans on his forearm. His hair falls around his shoulders like a veil.

“What were you thinking about?” He was trying to sound assertive, quizzical,Aziraphale was sure, but there were creases on his cheek from the pillow, and his eyes are still blinking away sleep. Aziraphale feels something inside his chest soften, feels rested, feels peaceful.

“Apples,” He tells him, honestly. Crowley looks amusedly confused, intrigued. “We should go buy some.”

“Or,” Crowley challenges, looking entirely unconvinced. He snaps his fingers and a picnic basket full of apples lands softly on the bed, teeming to the point of spilling russet fruit all over the sheets. “We could stay here.”

He reaches down for one, vividly deep red, and holds it out to Aziraphale. His expression is expectant, patient at first, though it falters when Aziraphale doesn’t immediately take it. It seems to dawn on him, slowly, the implications - the red fruit, his arm outstretched.

Before he can think too deeply, before he can misunderstand, Aziraphale tilts his face in his hands and kisses him.

When he pulls back, Crowley looks pensive, unsure, searching Aziraphale’s eyes for reassurance. Aziraphale simply takes the apple and bites into it, unrepentant. The sweetness bursts in his mouth and he drinks it down, deliriously happy. He kisses Crowley again, and the look he receives is worshipful, adoring.

He lets the wave of Crowley’s love wash over him, again and again, overwhelming and devout. He gives into it, utterly and completely, closes his eyes and surrenders.

\- The End -

**Author's Note:**

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> The statue mentioned is Apollo vainqueur du serpent Python, which is on display in the Louvre. Please leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed!


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